TKC 180 John Tayman

News – 1) Amazon announces a brisk beginning for KDP Select at the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, with impressive numbers reported for December. Jon Cog covers the story at Beyond Black Friday, as does Jeremy Greenfield at Digital Book World. If you’re still wavering on signing up for Amazon Prime membership, Jason Calacanis will probably tip you over the edge. 2) Amazon releases tools for Kindle Format 8 (KF8). CNET has the story, and the EBook Ninjas have the details in their latest podcast episode, Number 63. 3) Amazon’s Kindle Content VP, Russ Grandinetti, address the topic of ebook pricing a year ago at Digital Book World expo. Click here for the full presentation, and look for the video player in the right column partway down the screen.

Tech Tips – If it still bugs you that the Kindle Fire does not have a physical volume controller, you might want to download a clever free app named Volume Control 1.1 that will add a discreet controller to your screen, always available to adjust your Fire’s volume. James Schorr recommends SquareTrade for Kindle extended warranties.

Interview (Starts at 16:38) – John Tayman, author of The Colonyand founder and CEO of Byliner.com, spoke with me by Skype and phone from San Francisco on January 11. He explained how he chose the length of Byliner Originals, great nonfiction and fiction stories published for Kindle and other ebook platforms. Among the topics discussed: And the War Cameby Jamie Malanowski, Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer, Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan, and Apple Quick Reads.

Comments 4

Thanks for the link to Russ Grandinetti’s speech, pretty interesting.
I have long held (well before the Kindle) that over ten bucks is ridiculous for a normal ebook.
And some of the most profitable digital-content businesses I know are some of those giving away the most content!

I was sad to hear that Nancy Pearl was getting hassled about the Amazon deal. She doesn’t owe her success to bookstores. They made lots of money over her appearances. Nancy is helping to bring back out of print books, and that will be good for readers. Nancy loves to read and she has been serving the public for years. Bookstores can’t survive on dtb books they need to be community centers that also sell books. The horse and carriage still exists but is no longer the primary mode, as will go paper books. Karen

I was catching up on old podcasts and listened to this episode. I nearly jumped off my chair when I heard about the woman who books in the cloud disappeared. My archive has hundreds of books–if I haven’t downloaded them to the Fire shouldn’t they appear in the Cloud section? Only 9 do. Of those 6 are also on my device. I keep meaning to figure out what the deal is so I haven’t deregistered or reset to factory specs…